Circle of Dar Janix

Recently WotC revealed that they will be republishing the three core rule books for AD&D. This probably serves as a way to keep D&D books on shelves during the period between editions, and possibly to gauge interest in re-releases. This will no doubt result in some players encountering the classic game for the first time, a whole new generation of people experiencing it. It will be interesting to see what those players may come up with based on their experience. They will be coming at the game from a totally different direction. It is impossible to say how many younger players will pick it up. Will they play it in large numbers, or will it be almost totally older players buying it? I plan on picking up copies, but mostly just for collector purposes. At this point I hardly ever use the original rule books anyway. OSRIC works so much better at the tale, due to its better organization. At this point only a a rerelease that had substantial reorganization would replace OSRIC at my t...

One of the most valuable sites on the internet for adventure writing, actually almost any writing, is tvtropes.org  . While tropes are often something to be avoided, or at least subverted, in fiction writing, they can be very valuable in adventure writing. The value of tropes is even higher in a convention setting. They are a shared vocabulary and shorthand that you can leverage to get your players on board with the setting.  Getting players on board with the setting can be one of the most challenging parts of preparing and running an adventure, especially at a convention. Setting presents problems for gamemasters that writers do not have. A writer has the luxury of exploring his setting, revealing the rules of his universe as he goes. A writer knows what parts of the setting his characters, and thus the readers, are going to interact with and can provide the reader with the necessary rules and background. Furthermore, readers never do anything unexpected, they either keep reading or p...